The School of Greatness - 849 Stay True To Your Purpose

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

DON’T GET DISTRACTED BY SHINY THINGS. It can be exciting to receive connections to the rich and powerful. Fancy dinners, galas, and White House dinners can be tempting. But if these things are keeping you from accomplishing what you set out to do, you’re better off without them. Money comes with strings. If the people pulling those strings don’t align with your message, that money has too great a cost. For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Jacob Lief where he shared what has made his non-profit Ubuntu so successful. Jacob Lief is the Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund, a non-profit organization that takes vulnerable children living in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa from cradle to career. Ubuntu's programs form an integrated system of medical, health, educational and social services, ensuring that a child who is either orphaned or vulnerable can, after several years, succeed. Jacob has been able to stay focused on one area and one community of people by being consistent about what Ubuntu says yes to. It’s not the most glamorous route, but it’s the most impactful. Learn how to stay disciplined and focused on your goal in Episode 849. In This Episode You Will Learn: The thing that has worked the best for Ubuntu (2:00) Why you sometimes have to say “no” to things (2:30) About the struggle to keep people interested in your cause (3:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes, and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/849 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is 5-Minute Friday! to serving people and to serving a specific community to change their entire mindset, their entire process, their entire way of living, to have it all in life, to improve their lifestyle in a place where poverty is extreme, to improve their education process, to improve the way people feel about themselves. So what's really worked for us is about staying focused right um we're in one area not not shiny balls like going to the next you know city or trying to expand or do things but just diving deep yeah being prepared and having the discipline to say no to money not all i think one you know it took us a long time to learn, but not all money

is equal. Not every dollar is worth the same. And so, you know, we used to raise eight, nine million dollars

a year, but we were taking a lot of this huge foundation money and government money that was forcing us to do things we didn't like.

You know, we called it drug money. It was sexy, it was exciting, it would get us to big conferences, but it was killing our soul.

You know, we were getting a lot of, it was very glamorous, a lot of stuff attached to a lot of this money. And having the discipline to say no, to turn it down if it's not right for your organization. You know, I made that analogy to, you know, startups in Northern California. But you're in Silicon Valley with a tech startup. You spend a lot of time talking about who you want investing in your company, right? What type, what should your portfolio look like? And we don't do enough of that in the nonprofit sector. And I'm really encouraging, you know, nonprofit leadership to

have that discussion with their team and not just take all money because it's there. Because a lot of it can do a lot more harm than good. Remember that, you know, as a nonprofit, you know your business better than others. And just because some guy made billions of dollars trading Uber doesn't mean he knows how to do global health, right? Exactly, yes. And you might have some great ideas

but it's a good, you know, I say that because oftentimes a lot of those with the financial means dictate the agenda. And we have to listen a lot more to non the financial means dictate the agenda. And we have to listen a lot more to nonprofit leadership. So you mentioned Scott and I have both spent a good majority of their careers understanding their issues, right?

Global education, clean water initiatives. Let them tell you what needs to be done. Yeah, that's cool. Okay. So where is this all heading for us? I think one of the biggest frustrations before I get to that for us has been, and what we continue to struggle with is, we work in one little corner of the world. And how do you attract the massive funding? Now, if I wanted to expand to seven regions, we could climb to a $20 million organization

pretty quickly. So how do you continue to sell people on the idea on one little town and let me tell you sustain success isn't exciting for people it's weird like you know if you had your money in uh some stock that just kept going up each year you wouldn't take your money out you'd leave it in but in the non-profit sector people get bored they want the next big magic bullet, and what we've realized is there's no magic in raising children.

Right. It takes time, energy, and a lot of love. A lot of love, a lot of hard work, a lot of energy. That's all it is. And Matt, how do you, from a marketing standpoint, think Scott has just done? I mean, you mentioned Scott and Charity Water. I look at what they've done as a model from a branding perspective.

And how do you reinvent yourself in a way to constantly come up with new ways of selling yourself? And they do it very well. They really do. So that's what we've struggled with is constantly having to reinvent ourselves to sell the same, same product really. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called the millionaire morning. It includes some of my best tips

for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.